Say goodnight to net neutrality as AT&T just rolled out 'internet fast lanes'
"AT&T spent the better part of last year pretending to shake its fist along with the majority of Americans in support of net neutrality rules being kept. This protesting included CEO Randall Stephenson doing some damage control by slyly asking the Republican Congress to create an “Internet Bill of Rights” that would allow his company to get around the predictable rise in state laws that try to protect their citizens from predatory telecoms, now that telecoms have gotten their way."
"AT&T may also have trouble getting consumer advocates on board. Stephenson didn't provide any specifics, including whether the bill of rights would block controversial "fast lanes" for services and sites that pay broadband companies for preferential treatment."
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"We don't block websites. We don't censor online content. And we don't throttle, discriminate, or degrade network performance based on content. Period," Stephenson wrote.
I'm personally more than ok with seeing it go. The problem/challenge will be to keep repealing regulation so that there are not other laws still propping up certain companies.
The arguments often given about ISPs broadband lines, fiber etc, being dug down and finite in the ground material that is hard to compete with I don't buy at all. For one thing that's way many utilities work and they actually work even without government intervention, even if rarely left that way for long. But more easily seen today is that if we just put some effort in, we could actually route around the ISPs with our own distributed networks and we wouldn't have to use their cables at all.
That would take some work obviously. But it would be worth it and with increased interest in cooperative agorism I'm sure it's just around the corner.